Navigon 1210 Sat-Nav review

Summary

Our Score

8/10

Review Price free/subscription

Sat-navs with full European maps are normally the premium models, costing in excess of £200. But Navigon doesn't appear to have read the rules. Despite the 1210 including maps for 40 European countries, you can pick it up for under £100, which is about what most manufacturers charge for their European maps alone. So Navigon has almost thrown the sat-nav device itself in for free.

With this in mind, it's easy to tolerate a few rough edges - and the 1210 does have a few of those, not least on the casing of the sat-nav unit itself. Our main criticism is the address entry interface, which has the same failings as with the 1210's premium sibling, the 7210. The tabbed process feels a little clunky compared to the implementations of other manufacturers, and in particular lacks the ability to navigate to a house number when you enter a postcode.

On the plus side, the New Destination dialog gives you direct access to three categories of Points of Interest (POI). By default, these are petrol stations, parking and restaurants, and pressing any of these will call up a list of what is near your current location. The three slots are entirely customisable, too, allowing you to swap them for any of the other 25 POI options.

This isn't the only way to get to nearby POIs. The Options button on the initial screen includes a Direct Help button, which finds the closest petrol stations, police stations, hospitals and pharmacies. These choices cannot be customised, but the display also includes phone numbers for each POI, as well as allowing you to navigate to them, which might well be useful in an emergency. The Options menu is also the home of Route Planning. As well as navigating to a single destination, you can define routes with multiple waypoints, then save and recall these routes - handy if you plan a scenic detour.